Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Currently

I have hooked up with Oh' Boy 4th Grade in a Blog Hop.  This is my first Blog Hop ever and I have read this on The Bomb Diggity Classroom for several years now and decided to join this time. This hop is called currently. 


I am currently listening to my children play cops and run around the house.  I have a three year old and a six year old that LOVE to play with each other.  It does get annoying at times, but I cherish these moments because I know one day they will not want to play together anymore. 

I love may family they are my life.  (Enough Said)

I am thinking it has been a long day and I need to go to bed. 

I am wanting my extended family to understand.  I just found out I have three Thanksgiving gatherings on Thanksgiving at the same time.  It is physically IMPOSSIBLE to be there.  

I am in need of some date time with my hubby.  I need to go out to a nice restaurant and have adult conversation. 

Three trips I would love to take is Australia, California, and New York.  I have been to New York and loved it so much I want to go back.

Monday, September 1, 2014

Tour of my room this year

This year I decided to go simple and colorful in my classroom. Here is a photo tour of my room. 

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Science Circus


This week has been an adventure for me!  I have been teaching at Brainworks Learning Lab which is a locally owned learning center.  I have been doing a series called Science Circus.  This is a three hour a day camp with ten kids doing the fun things that you want to do in a classroom, but it doesn't fit with a standard. This has been so fun!  I have loved doing Science with them all week.  Here is a list of things that I have done with them this week. (I have to give credit to Steve Spangler Science for helping me come up with so many activities for them to complete)  All the activities can be found on the Steve Spangler website unless otherwise noted. 

Day 1 
* We made a solar oven (which I treated as a STEM challenge) and cooked Smores outside with the solar energy.
*We made Color Changing Milk.  This was a very quick neat activity. 
*We made homemade ice cream in a tub that they had to shake for 20 minutes.  Yes, I said twenty minutes.  The kids got creative on how they shook their ice cream tub. 
*We watched a video from Curiosity Quest (found on You Tube) of how ice cream is made.  This was to help time the 20 minutes of shaking!

Day 2
*We made a Diving Ketchup bottle. 
*We made Jellyfish and learned how black is really not just the color of black.  
*We made spaghetti dance and wiggle. 
*We tried to make a Popsicle chain reaction. (HINT: Use the large Popsicle sticks!  It did not work with the regular craft sticks)

Day 3
*We completed Genetics with a Smile (pulled from The Science Spot).  I had loads of fun teaching 2-5 graders about Punnett Squares, Genotypes, Phenotypes, Recessive, and Dominant traits.  You would be AMAZED at what they soak up.  (These are middle school standards)
*We tested candy bars to see if they sank or floated.
*We extracted DNA from a strawberry!!!!!!!
*We pulled the M and the S off of the M&M and the Skittles.  This was AWESOME and great to see the kids reaction when the letter floated right off of the candy.  I loved seeing the excitement.
*We made a colorful density column in a straw.

This is when I planned to start the blog so the next two days are my plans of what are going to happen. I will update with pictures.  

Day 4
*The Power of Bleach

This is a picture of kids mixing te water and bleach solution to change color. 

*Red Cabbage Chemistry
This activity was a beat activity and got the kids excited about "doing" science. We also had a great discussion of household items that are acidic and that are base. Below you will find two pictures one before the solution with out 13 different items and the an after the solution was added picture. 


*Taco Sauce Penny Cleaner

We concluded that the Taco Bell mild sauce cleaned the pennies the best.  *Musical Straws- This activity was a huge hit. After completing this activity all the wanted to do was play music with the straws. 
*Wrapper Worm
*Penny Boat Race

Day 5
*Singing Glasses
*Elephant Toothpaste (The students are intrigued by this title already) 
The video below is a short demonstration of what happened.  If I could do it over I would have doubled the ingredients. 


*Pop Rocks Experiment
*Quicksand Goo


*Mentos Geyser- In the two video's below, we tested Diet Coke and Coke to see which worked best.
 


This was an awesome week! 


Science is Everywhere

Welcome

Welcome to my blog! 

A little bit about me:
I have been teaching for eleven years now.  I have taught science in some capacity in all the eleven years.  Currently, I teach in a unique situation at the local elementary school.  I teach in a lab grades pre k through fifth grade on a daily basis and I LOVE it. I also teach a part time job online teaching science. 

How I came to creating a blog:
I have been following a co-workers blog, The Bomb Diggity Classroom,  for some time  now and I have been reading several  blogs (including one of my favorite Second Grade Shenanigans) in the past couple of weeks.  As I was looking over the blogs, I realized that I can do this.  I can tell of happenings in the lab and activities that I have used.  After talking with The Bomb Diggity Classroom, I am jumping in both feet and ready to blog. 

I can't wait to meet you and the dive into this new adventure.

Science is Everywhere!